We hope to use this blog to notify you about upcoming events, share new resources as we find them, and invite conversations or questions on any topic dealing with diversity and student success. Please don't worry about being "PC" or making a mistake; we're all in this together and we're all learning together. We may not have all the answers, but if we don't we'll try to find resources for you or to invite conversations that help us develop strategies together. Please contact us if you'd like to collaborate on events; if there are student, instructor or staff needs that need to be addressed, or if you need support or resources. Also, we know there is a wealth of expertise on our campus: please use this space to share resources you have found to be helpful in your work.

E Komo Mai is a Hawaiian phrase that means "Welcome!" The Office of Diversity and Equity extends a warm welcome to you. This is one of my favorite poems about education: it reminds us that the real results of the work we do are not always immediate, but in the long term, contribute in a meaningful way to a better world. It also reminds us to take care of ourselves and each other along the way.From The Seven of Pentacles...Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar. Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs. Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,for every gardener knows that after the digging, afterthe planting,after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes. ~ Marge Piercy ~Aloha!Eileen Yoshina,Director of Diversity and Equity